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Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.Or: O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts.

Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: Violet.

About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:

Second Reading: Aphraates (c.280 - c.345)

Aphraates or Aphrahat was a Syriac Christian writer of the early fourth century. He lived through the Persian persecutions which followed the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire. His “Demonstrations” are a collection of twenty-three sermons, each expounding an aspect of Christian life or doctrine. They are solid and straightforward, not straying far from biblical sources, and they are valuable not only in themselves but also as a witness to Syriac Christian belief before the outbreak of the Arian heresy. Demonstration 11, which is used in the Office of Readings, is one of a set of four which examine Judaism, perhaps because some members of the Persian Church wanted to incorporate more Jewish elements into Christianity.

Liturgical colour: violet

Violet is a dark colour, ‘the gloomy cast of the mortified, denoting affliction and melancholy’. Liturgically, it is the colour of Advent and Lent, the seasons of penance and preparation.

Repent, renounce all your sins, avoid all occasions of sin! Shake off all the sins you have committed against me, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why are you so anxious to die, House of Israel? I take no pleasure in the death of anyone – it is the Lord who speaks. Repent and live!

Return to me, says the Lord of Hosts, and I will return to you. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets in the past cried ‘Turn back from your evil ways and evil deeds’ but they would not listen.